Vigor of Twelve is a play off of the fact that Jesus had twelve disciples. It is a name that helps stress an importance on discipleship. This blog is specifically geared for younger people and mature Christians who don't mind a fresh, bold, and blunt approach to faith. Comments welcome, let's begin the discussion!

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Friday, July 15, 2016

Luke 15:17-19

Luke 15:17-19

“And he came to himself and was saying, ‘How many of my
father’s hired servants abound in bread?
Yet I perish here in scarcity.
After rising up, I will journey to my father and I will say to him, ‘Father,
I sinned into heaven and in your presence.
I am not worthy to be called your son.
Make me as one of your hired servants.’’

Thoughts
for Today

First Thought:

We see confirmation of where we left off yesterday. Hitting rock bottom, he finally starts
thinking with sanity. He doesn’t have
anything to distract him from his misery.
He doesn’t have any false hope to cling to. He has to face reality. That reality is the fact that his father’s
hired servants are living better than he is living. His father’s servants have made better
choices in life than he has. He knows
this now.

Why do human beings actually need to lose all sources of
false hope before often being able to come to their senses? Why will human beings cling to anything that
might save them before truly recognizing their actual circumstances?

Second Thought:

After coming to his senses, the young man does something
else that really makes sense. He starts
making a plan. When the young man left
home with money in his pocket, he had no plan.
He was going to go out and live the high life, not realizing how quickly
he will burn through the resources. But
now that he has come back to his senses, the plan comes. To get out of the dark place where he has
descended, he needs to stop living on a whim and start living according to a
plan.

When has making a plan actually helped you find a way out of
dark places of despair? Do you find it
is easy to make a plan? How easy is it
to stick to a plan once it’s made?

Third Thought:

The next thing that the son does is to
rehearse his confession. He knows that
he is going to have to own up to what he has done. There is genuine confession here. There is genuine repentance here. The young son is taking ownership of what he
has done. He is owning the break in
relationship that he caused. After
coming to his senses and after making a plan, he rehearses what needs to be
said so that when the time comes he can do it right, the way that it deserves
to be done.

Why do we need to rehearse taking ownership? Have you ever tried to apologize without
truly thinking it through first? Why is
it important that we think through our repentance?